CHRESTIEN DE TROYES, kr:Ay:ix' de trw:i (e.1145-1191). A French poet, the founder of the mediaeval courtly romance. lie was horn in Troyes, and was at taelied to the Court not only of the Count of Champagne. his native district, but also to those of the neighboring principalities of Flanders and Hainaut. Ile is the most famous of the authors who developed the Arthurian ro mances in Frame, and expressed the spirit of the later chivalry, much more refined and ap proaehing notch more nearly modern ideas than the fierce and warlike epics of the Charlemagne cycle. Arthur's Court, in his hands. heennies a civilized and brilliant gathering. modeled after those with which the poet was familiar. In faet, though finding his subjects in the fantastic and ideal legends of an earlier age, he treats them most successfully when he deals with details I if every-day life, which he renders with the fidelity of a modern novelist, delighting in the reproduction of scenes of pomp and ceremony to please the aristocratic society for whom he wrote. It is probable, though the whole subject is full of controversy, that to the novelist's in stinct of Chrestieu is due the rounding out and completion of what we may call the plot of the Arthurian story, in which case a very high place must be assigned to him among the romancers of the world. From his working in of the Grail
legend (see GRAIL, THE Hors) in his huge ro mance of Perecrale (lanais (ed. Potvin, 6 vols.. Alons, 1866-71), which with its continuations hr other hands extends to 63,000 lines. sprang the great epic of Wolfram von Eschenbach (q.v.) which furnished Wagner with the material for the libretto of Parsifal. ids other main works, in the best editions, are Ever ct Enidc (Forster, 1896), or Lc Cla'ralier no Lyon (id., Halle, 1887 ) : Lc Chevalier el la Charrette (Jonekbloet, The Hague, 1850: FOrster, Halle, 1899) ; and Cliges (id., Halle, 1884). They are written in netosyllabic couplets, light, flowing, and full of charm. Consult Potvin, Bibliogra phic de rhrestien de Troyes (Brussels. 1863) ; and see FRENCH LITERATURE: A RTII ; PEIZCEVA